BACKGROUND:

Tea constituents, including polyphenols, are hypothesized to have chemopreventive properties, and inhibit the induction of skin cancers in animal models.

OBJECTIVE:

To explore the association between regular tea consumption (>or=1 cup/d for >or=1 month) and the incidence of squamous cell (SCC) and basal cell (BCC) carcinomas.

METHODS:

A population-based case-control study of 770 individuals with BCC, 696 with SCC, and 715 age- and sex-matched control subjects.

RESULTS:

After adjustment for age, sex, and lifetime history of painful sunburns, ever having consumed tea regularly was associated with a significantly lower risk of SCC (odds ratio [OR] = 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.53-0.92), especially among long-term drinkers (>or=47 years consumption: SCC, OR = 0.49; 95% CI 0.29-0.83; P for trend = .008) and among those consuming >or=2 cups/d (OR = 0.65; 95% CI 0.44-0.96; P for trend = 0.013). After adjustment for age and sex, ever having consumed tea regularly was weakly associated with BCC risk (OR = 0.79; 95% CI 0.63-0.98).

LIMITATIONS:

Our case-control study was susceptible to recall bias and to confounding by unknown cancer risk factors associated with tea consumption.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our findings support the existence of an inverse association between tea consumption and skin carcinogenesis.